Wendelin Van Draanen Quotes

Man, talk about having a skeleton in the closet - this

This is the kind of silence that connects us in a way that words never could.

What he did to my heart was sheer, inexplicable, magic.

And every time I saw her, she seemed more beautiful. She just seemed to glow. I'm not talking like a hundred-watt bulb; she just had this warmth to her. Maybe it came from climbing that tree. Maybe it came from singing to chickens. Maybe it came from whacking at two-by-fours and dreaming about perpetual motion. I don't know. All I know is that compared to her, everybody else seemed so ordinary.
I had flipped.

I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn't be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet – only science would put them on the same tree.

As I run, I wonder how many of these people helped buy my leg.
I wonder about the deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action, and how many of them leapt across it.

I just need some time to get over all those years of having liked him

I'd way rather defend myself against a man with a stick than a social worker with good intentions.

Part of my motivation for writing mysteries for young people is that I loved mysteries when I was growing up, and now that I'm on the creative end of things, I'm discovering that they're even more fun to write!

And then she started climbing/ The girl is in the seventh grade, and she's climbing a tree
way, way up in the tree. And why does she do it? So she can yell down at us that the bus is five! four! three blocks away! Blow-by-blow traffic watch from a tree
what every kid in junior high feels like hearing first thing in the morning. She tried to get me to come up there with her, too. "Bryce, come on! You won't believe the colors! It's absolutely magnificent! Bryce, you've got to come up here!" Yeah, I could just hear it: "Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree ... " Was I ever going to leave the second grade behind?

I'd scale that monster sycamore if I could. Right to the top. And I'd yell her name across the rooftops for the whole world to hear.
-Bryce

HERE LIES THE MYSTERY PISSER


P.I.P.

My mission as a writer is to give my readers hope to carry with them, and to promote a belief that they can do anything they set their minds to.

... if we walk far but are angry as we journey, we travel nowhere. If we hold grudges as we scale mountains, our view remains the same.

What I'm expecting is for you to behave like the gentleman I always thought you were.

My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes. They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast while the rest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away.

You don't have to be an immediate expert at everything, Juli. The idea here is to learn something new.

Really, Dad. I understand now about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Maybe it was how you looked at it. Maybe there were things I saw as ugly that other people thought were beautiful.

I knew we weren't rich, but I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

She was married to my dad, and everything was fine until he got killed in some freak tractor accident.
Yeah, that's what I said, a freak tractor accident.

There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.

A painting is more than the sum of its parts,' he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.

I was slipping, man, and it was definetly time to get a grip.

I'm not going to be able to sleep a wink tonight.
I hate shelters.
People coughing and snoring and hacking up who-knows-what.
It's a nightmare.
But I do have clean teeth.

And since you know what a tree-climbing weenie I am, I think it's pretty clear that I'm willing to do anything to get her to talk to me. Man, I'll dive after her into a chicken coop full of poop if that's what it takes. I'll ride my bike all the stinkin' way to school for the rest of eternity if it means being with her

There's nothing like a headstrong woman to make you happy to be alive.

My life is over. Behind

Proper lighting is everything, Julianna.

But I've never spoken to a grave before.
I don't know what to say.
I don't know how.
'I'm so sorry,' I choke out, but that's as far as I get before I start crying. I feel bad that she's gone. I feel overwhelmed. And I feel guilt.
Guilt that I've recovered.
Guilt that I'm happy.
Guilt that I ever thought she was the lucky one.

Summers there are awful! Winters there are awful! Why do you stay? You ought to run away! Hop a train! Stow away on a bus!
What am I saying? You could just buy yourself a ticket.
It would be interesting to talk to you if you did it the other way, though.
We could compare scars and bruises.
It might be fun.

Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair
Look at what's really there.

But in my heart I knew that just like the new grass, I wasn't strong enough yet to be walked on

At first we tried to keep up, but soon we were tired of boiling and pickling and deviling, and my mother started complaining that all these free eggs were costing her way too much.

Okay that's it. Now I'm torching this. I just need to score a match.

It's experiences in life that give us something to write about, and since good fiction is applied tension, you'll have an arsenal of good material if life hasn't been peachy (and not a whole lot if it has).

You never forget your first love.

There are certain things I believe we need to keep in our emotional arsenal as we navigate through life. Hope is a big one. The more of that we can carry, the better.

If you are interested in writing, get out and live your life! Do a lot. See a lot. Keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to the different ways people speak. Read lots of different kinds of books. And then try writing in different voices and styles - don't be afraid to experiment.

Sometimes the things we really want are right in front of us. We just don't see them.

I wipe away my tears and nod, because the pain in my leg is nothing compare to the one in my heart.

Street people use cardboard all the time, and bum alleys are just shanties or lean-tos, though. They're nothing like my house! Mine is deluxe! It's a big, thick, super sturdy refrigerator box that I found at an appliance store!

Thank you for helping me turn the page.

I had liked him for all the wrong reasons.

My grandfather stood beside me and looked across the street, too. "No, Bryce," he said softly. "She's the same as she's always been; you're the one who's changed." He clapped his hand on my shoulder and whispered, "And son, from here on out, you'll never be the same again.

I had Flipped.

-Bryce Loski

That's the funny thing about running. The deceptive thing about it. It may seem mindless, but its really mental. If the minds strong, the body acts weak, even if its not.

Surely, I thought, a few bushes and some dilapidated wood couldn't stop someone's best and brightest blessing! Surely not!

There's no winning arguments with your parents

And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating.

I miss school.
What's wrong with me?

If chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one's universe, then I was well on my way.

The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. Do the right thing.

It's funny to hear priests and nuns argue with each other.

I'll ride my bike all the stinkin' way to school for the rest of eternity if it means being with her.
-Bryce

If you were in love with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing.

Don't even try to talk to me when I'm watching the moon. That's my moon, baby.

He'd crossed the line, man. He'd crossed it big-time.

I don't think you're aloud to be homeschooled if you don't have a home.

Then a few months ago I found myself talking to the tree. An entire conversation, just me and a tree. And on the climb down I felt like crying. Why didn't I have someone real to talk to? Why didn't I have a best friend like everyone else seemed to? Sure, there were kids I knew at school, but none of them were close friends. They'd have no interest in climbing the tree. In smelling the sunshine.

All of a sudden I didn't fit in anywhere. Not at school, not at home ... and every time I turned around, another person I'd known forever felt like a stranger to me. Even I felt like a stranger to me.

Writing is work. It takes a lot of contemplation, concentration, and out-and-out sweat. People tend to romanticize it, that somehow your work appears by benefit of some mystical external force. In reality, to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. It's work, and often it's hard work.

One's character is set at an early age. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.

It's amazing how two thin pieces of clothing can hold such deep memories. Laughter, pain, victory, defeat, friendship, fatigue, elation ... they're all there, but only to the person who's worn the uniform

Food in the trash is like the tossed-and-found.

Was it so much to ask just to be left alone?

I also finally see that a crimson kiss isn't something you can chase, because it's more than just the passionate meeting of mouths.
It's a confession.
It's the truth your lips whisper to someone you love.

I write early in the morning at the computer, and people think I'm crazy, but I still use my Mac-Classic even though we have a state-of-the-art PC. There are just less distractions with the simpler machine.

As much as thinking this upsets me, I'm starting to see that I need the merry-go-round much more than it needs me, and in the end my choice is to hop back on or get left in the dust.

By the end of that first day, what I'd made was a big mess. But if chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one's universe, that I was well on my way.

Now, I know from experience that the trouble with one lie is that it usually takes more lies to cover it up. And if you don't watch out, you wind up telling lies to cover up the lies that are covering up the original lie.

And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just ... real.
And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Baker's world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one.
Where had all this stuff come from?
And why hadn't I ever seen it before.

It's that way with people, too. Only with people it's sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

Either people like running or they don't. Either people get it or they don't. And if they don't, they just think people who like it are crazy.
Which is okay.
That makes us even.

I believe in the paramount importance of entertainment, but I have something to say.

It's funny how you can think you know someone pretty well, and then something happens or they do something that makes you understand that you didn't really know them at all.

And, dude, the truth is, if you're gonna be like this, I don't need the association.

Backup backpacks.

You got nothin' to lose but your self-respect.

It was beyond embarrassing or humiliating or even mortifying. It was ego-slaying!

Don't sum up a person based on what you see, or what you don't understand; get to know them

Somehow the silence seemed to connect us in a way like words never could.